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2 arrested in Avondale shooting death

Family members speak out

Friends remember 19-year-old as someone who gave back to his community.

2 arrested in Avondale shooting death

Family members speak out

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Updated: 11:44 PM EST Feb 6, 2013

CINCINNATI —

Police arrested two men in connection with the shooting death of an Avondale teenager.

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Cincinnati police said Lavon Oden and Curtis Boston were charged with murder in the death of DaShawn Wheeler, 19. Police said the two gunned down the teen on Jan. 30, and the car Wheeler and two other men were sitting in was ransacked for cash and marijuana.

"I'm not sure what those other two individuals were doing, (but) I know that DaShawn was not into drugs. He worked, and he worked hard," said Wheeler's grandfather, the Rev. Steven Wheeler.

Family members said Wheeler was killed in a case of mistaken identity. Now, Wheeler's relatives are pouring their heartache into passion for one of the ministries the teen helped.

"He helped me initiate Martin Luther King Week of Service long before people were talking about it several years ago," said Rev. Wheeler.

After completing his impact ministry project, family members said, the teen reached out to some of the underclassmen at Woodward High School.

"He was well-liked. He was a good young man, someone who was kind of a mentor to some of the younger children," said Cincinnati Police Chief James Craig.

The Rev. Steven Wheeler is leaving a message to the men who took his grandson's life.

"They've done a very painful thing, and they did something to my daughter when they took her first-born child away," he said. "You hurt so many people. You hurt my baby. You hurt my baby, you understand that?"

Family members said the teen was planning to go to college at the University of Cincinnati, and to honor that, they are beginning a scholarship in his name.